The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.
H. P. LOVECRAFTAtmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood.
More H. P. Lovecraft Quotes
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There be those who say that things and places have souls, and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say, myself, but I will tell of The Street.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
The earliest English attempts at rhyming probably included words whose agreement is so slight that it deserves the name of mere ‘assonance’ rather than that of actual rhyme.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
Even when the characters are supposed to be accustomed to the wonder, I try to weave an air of awe and impressiveness corresponding to what the reader should feel. A casual style ruins any serious fantasy.
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The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life.
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If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
Horrors, I believe, should be original – the use of common myths and legends being a weakening influence.
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In theory I am an agnostic, but pending the appearance of rational evidence, I must be classed, practically and provisionally, as an atheist.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
From my experience, I cannot doubt but that man, when lost to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed sojourning in another and uncorporeal life of far different nature from the life we know; and of which only the slightest and most indistinct memories linger after waking.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
One can never produce anything as terrible and impressive as one can awesomely hint about.
H. P. LOVECRAFT -
In writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs.
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It would not be amiss for the novice to write the last paragraph of his story first, once a synopsis of the plot has been carefully prepared – as it always should be.
H. P. LOVECRAFT